


Help Wanted

by maximum_overboner



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Dark Comedy, Hats, M/M, Masochism, Paperhat - Freeform, Smut, blackhat is a truly hideous creature, but not from the person you would expect!, compiled short stories, dark dark comedy, deeply unhealthy dynamic, it doesn't get much darker than this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 05:58:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11098350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/maximum_overboner
Summary: Flug deeply regrets attending this job interview.





	Help Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> aha! i knew i had to do one of these. there isn't a lot of material to work off of at all, but i hope i can do the characters justice

In a rather small city, in a rather large country, sat a park that was of reasonable size. It contained nothing of note barring a bench, pond, and occasional swan, but it was there and it was pleasant. But one day, out of nothing, there sat a sprawling mansion, that should have taken years of planning to build and yet had sprung up overnight with no fanfare, effulgence or anything resembling a fuss. The space was empty, you would blink, and it was there, weathered around the edges as if it were a lavishly furnished historical building that had been there for years. Something in your mind would compel you to believe that was the case, and that you happened to be unobservant and had simply missed the multistory mansion every single day of your life; it happens to the best of us.

Anyone that questioned _why_ this mansion was here began foaming at the mouth, dying, and tearing out their spleens, in that specific order, so it was generally agreed upon by the townspeople that it was to be acknowledged as a normal home because if they loved their families then _that was what it was._ In a last ditch attempt to figure out what was going on, science, reason and logic failing on every account, the police were sent in. They all came down with a case of Foaming Spleen Death upon passing the gate, and so it was ignored. Not in the way you ignore a fly, in the way you ignore a hawk eating your infant because you hope it will get bored and fly away. It was barren, it was mysterious, it was malevolent, but ultimately, it was empty.

One day, a light turned on. Upstairs, in what outsiders assumed was a bedroom. And then another, in the room over, and another in the room downstairs, meandering and slithering its way to the front door.

A man clad in a suit, vest and tophat, strolled out onto the path. He waited for someone to pass by, then set upon him with a cane and beat him to death. When the deed was done he declared his ‘experiment’ a success, bowed to the horrified crowd, took his victim’s wallet, then sauntered back into his home and locked the door.

The town called him Blackhat, unsure of what his name was. Fortunately, when he revealed himself on camera with a grand hand gesture, a swoosh of his coat and a smoker’s rasp, it turned out his name actually _was_ Blackhat so it made fervent prayers to God to keep this abomination out of their house far easier to organize. Crass, slimy, vulgar, but cast in an opulent mold. Finely tailored suits, polished shoes and a new looking top hat, fitted trousers and a silk tie, topped with a pristine monocle. Flopping from what he thought was honey-tongued wit to barking and croaking like a set-upon animal. But more pressing than his taste in clothing was the fact there was something off about him. He moved slightly out of sync with the world around him, something strange shambling in the skin of a man with a wide smile and wiggling eyebrows.

Days passed. It was time. He was to set his nefarious plan in action.

But first, he needed staff. He put out an ad in the newspaper. Only one candidate appeared. He was thin and knobbly, like a stick. Built like a stretched tendon. All gristle and no real meat. Sat opposite and looking like he wanted to melt through the floor, which was an option should the interview not pan out as wanted.   

Blackhat reclined in his throne, plush, cushioned, with three different massage settings.

“I…”

A stomp of his foot activated the smoke machine he kept under his desk, bought for this specific purpose.

“Am _Blackhat!”_

A din of organ music crashed through the house, and was then abruptly silenced.

“I love it when that happens,” he beamed. “And you are?”

“Florence--”

“Whatever, I don’t care, I’m calling you Flug.”

Flug resigned himself, sat in his damp garden chair. It made his back hurt.

“C-Can I… Get a cushion?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Blackhat tented his fingers, savouring how painfully uncomfortable the man opposite him was. Stuttering, sweating. Stupid face. Would be better if it were covered.

“What do you think you can offer my fine corporation?”

“I… I’m really smart?”

“Are you? I wouldn’t have guessed. How smart?”

He listed off his accolades, his numerous degrees, his accelerated learning. Blackhat tented his fingers, displaying his teeth.

“Ooh! Ooh, now that is promising. We can do some great things together, you and I, great things indeed. Now then! As my underling--”

Flug held his hands up, doing his best to remember the job posting he had seen.  

“Underling, I-- I thought we would be coworkers? Equals?”

Blackhat cackled, holding his stomach.

“-- Ah, ahh that was a good one, you’re quite funny-- but as my underling you will be expected to attend to your duties; research, planning, building, marketing, presenting--”

Flug balked.

“-- I can’t do that, you need entire teams of people for all of that!”

“Your résumé said you were a quick learner, eager to rise to a challenge!”

Blackhat’s face split in the middle, slowly, fissures spreading and growing deeper into a squelching, wiggling mess. Slowly, the skin peeled back until whatever bone structure he had flowered outwards, the inside a mass of squirming tongues and eyes and endless, shifting, snapping teeth. Flug fell from his chair, howling, transfixed and yet desperately trying to cover his eyes, plug his ears, anything. His brain couldn’t cope with the strain of what he was looking at and so he was left to compromise, digging his nails into his his knees until he tore the fabric of his jeans and, ultimately, his skin, his legs locking. One of the maws gibbered and it took four attempts to register what it hawked as words.

“You didn’t _lie_ , did you?”

Flug was reduced to horrified tears, saying whatever he needed to pacify this blasphemous thing.

“N-No, sir! No!”

Blackhat’s face popped back into place easily. He dusted off his lapel, straightened his suit and cleared his throat. He sipped his tea delicately.

“Wonderful! I don’t like people that lie to me. Or anyone. But especially liars. Any questions so far? Anything I should know about?”

Flug was in the foetal position, eyes glazed and looking off into somewhere else.

“You’re an affront to man and God,” he said, “and you _scare the bejeezus out of me._ I don’t know what you are but every part of me is screaming that you shouldn’t exist. _”_

Blackhat tittered.

“Oh _stop it,_ do you _always_ flirt in job interviews? If you thought such a transparent attempt to make me like you would work… You would be correct!”

Flug wanted to weep.

“I don’t want the job.”

“But you already have it.”

“How do I resign?”

“Death.”

“What _are_ you,” Flug croaked.

“Blackhat. I told you. Pay attention.”

“No. No, no, not your name. What... _Are_ you?”

Blackhat ignored his question.

“Now back to your duties; research, planning, building, marketing, presenting, running the social media accounts, giving me the names of people that say bad things about me _from_ the social media accounts, book deals, daytime television interviews, doing my makeup, pressing my suit, sexual favours, ghostwriting--”

_“Pardon?”_

“-- Ghostwriting, for when I’m too busy being fantastic and need someone to cover for me. Something with _real_ ghosts is preferable, but I will take werewolves at a pinch. No zombies.”

Blackhat scrunched up his face.

“Done to _death.”_

Flug blinked at him, then again, then once again, before his keen mind finally kicked into gear. He scrambled to his feet, wiping his eyes.

_“Sexual favours?”_

“A perk of the job! One of the many employee benefits I offer. And by many I mean one. One benefit. Move your hands, you’re getting fingerprints on the mahogany. Suck my cock.”

“No! _Th-This isn’t a benefit!”_

“Of course it is! I envy you, you get to look at me while it happens. I usually have to fetch a mirror, or detach my eyes and smear them on the walls. That reminds me; build me a cloning machine. Every time I make one myself it screams and begs for me to kill it.”

“You want me to build you something impossible so you can have an _orgy?!”_

“Good! You understand. Let me add that to the list.”

Flug was going to die. He had just wanted a lab job. A nice award. A pat on the head. Some marshmallows. He finally turned on his heels and ran, but was cut off by a calm, rasping Blackhat.

“Your funding is unlimited.”

Flug stopped.

“What?”

“Unlimited. As much money as you could ever want or need. _Everyone_ loves money.”

“How unlimited?”

Blackhat laughed, suave and sinister.

“What a stupid question!”

“What… Is it you want?”

“My good looks, charms, wits and raw sexual charisma can only get me so far. I’m going to start a show. I need products to sell. You will make them.”

“Sell? To the public?”

Blackhat’s smile grew until his eyes distended and his teeth won the fight with the rest of his face. 

“To _villains.”_

 

* * *

 

 

After showing Flug the basement in which he would be trapped, handing him a bag of money so large that he began to weep, they turned in for the night. Flug had a difficult time finding the bathroom in the dark, as its position seemed to change every time he needed to use it. First it was down the hall and to the left, then downstairs, then upstairs, then on a floor that had previously never existed. Eventually it unveiled itself, he did what he needed to, then began the journey back to his room.

The room had moved.

After an hour of wandering he fell asleep on the floor. He was awakened by Blackhat, dressed as sharply as he had the day before, poking him with his foot in the way you would a dead pigeon.

“Up. Up, get up.”

Flug blinked, the light from the hall searing the back of his eyes.

“Get to work.”

“What… Time is it?”

“Seven.”

“You want me to start right now?”

“Yes. You’re making breakfast.”

He turned on his heels and strode off, Flug scrambling up to follow him, unsure if he could navigate the house if he were left behind. It took two turns to find the kitchen. Flug, whilst quietly cursing the fact he was wasting his degree, set about mentally mapping where everything was. Red and black kitchen, red and black halls, red and black study, red and black suit. He had a theme and he was sticking to it. Blackhat sat himself at the dining table with an unsettling amount of grace, a newspaper to hand.

“I want to choke on the tears of _thirty thousand wailing virgins!”_

Flug checked the pantry.

“You don’t have any.”

“... Runny eggs and toast, with lashings of brown sauce.”

At least that was easier. Flug set to work, unhappy with the fact that he had trapped himself with hell on earth for a big bag of money and some eggs. Blackhat opened the paper, scanning the pages.

“Page _twenty_ ,” he grumbled. “I’m only on page twenty this time, and a recipe for scones is on page twelve. They aren’t even _evil_ scones. They’re _scones._ Short of pelting them they’re useless!”

“You can eat them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Gah, I keep slipping further and further back. Soon I won’t be in the paper at all. Is cannibalism still a taboo?”

Flug looked at him, deeply worried.

“It is.”  

“Oh good. I’ll always have that.”

 

* * *

 

The first of their experiments began, backed with, as promised, a truly unlimited amount of money. It was dubbed 5.0.5, Flug’s desperate attempt to send an S.O.S. to the outside world without being noticed that had, unfortunately, worked too well. Nobody had noticed he was there. The goal was to create the most savage, evil creature on the planet, incapable of holding loyalty, incapable of love, incapable of anything but rampant carnage. Combining the lackluster morality of the shark, the raw killing power of a bear, and the well hidden spite of that particularly angry badger Flug was forced to catch by hand. It would be a true force of evil, ready to be unleashed on command. The cylindrical chamber thrummed in front of them, filled with strange, meaty noises. Flug tended to his levers whilst Blackhat wrung his hands.

“If this door opens,” Blackhat said, “and a man walks out, showing that humans are the real monsters in a cute little moral where we all clap and hold hands, I’ll set your parents on fire.”

“N-Noted.”

The noises stop, the latch opened, and out stumbled a huge, adorable creature, with dewy eyes and soft paws.

Blackhat surveyed the creature calmly. He checked the teeth, the arms, the fur, circling around, appraising it.

“Flug.”

“Y-Yes, sir?”

“What the fuck is this.”

“I… I have no idea. I think it’s… It looks like a bear?”

The creature snapped out of its confusion, blinking. It encroached upon Blackhat, who let it.

“Hold on, hold on, it’s going to try and maim me! It was successful after all, something ‘cute’ and ‘cuddly’ being so dangerous, anyone using this will have the element of surprise!”

The bear pulled him into a gentle, sincere hug. Blackhat looked borderline orgasmic.

“Yes, _yes, savour the moment before indulging your bloodlust!”_

The indulging didn’t happen. The bear rubbed softly at his back, humming in contentment as it enjoyed the simple pleasure of a warm cuddle. A pleasant smell wafted over the room, Flug noticed the bear smelled like lavender. Even he was calmed. It slowly dawned on Blackhat that this was not, in fact, the lead-up to a savage attack, like the sort he would laugh at on the television, and that the bear was engaging of an act of love. And had pulled him into a hug that he had patiently enabled for two entire minutes.

He looked to Flug. He couldn’t see his face, but the skin of his neck was red with suppressed laughter. He shoved it off effortlessly, reminding Flug of just how strong he actually was.

“Off, off, get off of me, off! Go, maim, kill, do what you were meant to!”

It tried to pull him into another hug.

"A dud,” he spat, “it’s a dud. We can’t sell this, it would spit in the face of everything I’ve worked so hard for.”

Flug tempered his profound irritation with his fear.

“I built the machine. I put it all together.”

“Yes, but I had to point at things and shout at you to work faster. It’s a failure anyway. Maybe if you do something right I’ll give you a biscuit. It better be dead by the time I get back. I’m going to go play my organ.”

“There’s a bear on the loose, now isn’t the time to masturbate, boss.”

Blackhat grabbed him by his lapels and stared at him. He didn’t say anything, just let Flug stew in his own idiocy like a dumpling in piss.

“You meant the instrument-- oh-- oh right, I see, that’s-- that’s obvious now, please-- please let go--”

He shoved him off and left. It was Flug and his failed experiment. His failed, flawed, adorable experiment, that knew only love and tender hugs.

He clutched his head. He couldn’t kill a moth, nevermind this thing, and the machines he built were for efficient killing far away from him that he didn’t have to think on. Not helping this was the bombastic organ music blaring from the other end of the house, that lent a sense of grandness to the terrible farce that was now his life. He settled on a plan, a stupid, suicidal plan, but a plan nonetheless. He was scared of Blackhat, a fact which was easy to exploit, so scared in fact that he would never dare lie… Apparently.

Blackhat strode back in when Flug was at the apex of his panic. He looked at the bear, then to Flug, then to the bear.

“Why isn’t it a meatpile yet.”

“I… I made it indestructible.”

_“What.”_

“The bear, I…”

Flug wrung his fingers, the bones of his hand clicking, his palms clammy with sweat.

“I tried to incinerate it, sir, but it-- it didn’t take,” he lied.

“The rubbish men come tomorrow,” Blackhat said plainly, “throw it in the bin.”

Oh God, he couldn’t do _that_ , this wasn’t vague, comically evil villainy, he knew this poor thing couldn’t survive on its own.

“I can make it evil!”

“Doubtful. Look. Look at this.”

Blackhat punched it in the gut. It made a squeaky-toy noise and didn’t flinch at all, it didn’t even register pain. And yet, it looked fearful.

“Look at this shit, Flug. Look at what you’ve done.”

“I-I’m going to build a ray that makes things evil, like you wanted me to, doesn’t this make a good test subject?”

Blackhat, despite his trying, couldn’t argue with that one. He rolled his eyes.

“Put it in a room, in the furthest end of the mansion. If this thing ever interferes--”

“It won’t, it won’t ever, thank you sir--”  

It did interfere. It interfered a lot.

 

* * *

 

 

The door to Flug’s bedroom was beaten down, the light from outside barely seeping in through the windows. It was early in the morning, and Flug assumed he was in the grip of night terrors, but in reality he was shacked up with something far worse. Blackhat clambered on, legs to either side of his pelvis, and began.

“I’ve come up with a _genius idea_ that will _kill millions!”_

Flug stared at him, pulling his blanket up to cover his nudity.

“... What?”

“What if-- and I know this is incredible, but stay with me-- what if we were to harness the power of a _cannon--!”_

He did a little ‘explosion’ hand gesture with his palms, gleeful, as if Flug wouldn’t know what a cannon was.

“And place it… _In the palm of your hand._ It would _propel_ small pieces of metal at high speed, obliterating whatever insect is in its path! I’m going to be a millionaire, the world will enter a state of perpetual turmoil where I can crawl to the top and reign as **God-King**!”

This didn’t appear to be the ‘sexual favours’ portion of the agreement, then. Flug thought that the idea didn’t seem so terrible, now that he was under him.

“Sir… You’ve… You’ve invented the gun.”

“The what?”

“A gun, you’ve invented a handgun.”

“Not a ‘hand-gun’, that’s a terrible name, you should feel ashamed, a _‘bijou-banger’!”_

Flug fumbled for his phone on his bedside table and brought up the Wikipedia page for ‘handgun’. Blackhat scanned it, his smile tumbling from his face. He wracked his brain, coming up with another genius idea.

“The giving tree!”

“Pardon?”

“You remember the story, don’t you? Unconditional love, all that nonsense, what if we made a tree…”

He paused for effect, thrilled with himself. Flug was sure he could feel him grind his pelvis in a little, either fidgeting as he thought or teasing for the fun of it. Flug wished he could awkwardly cross his legs and wait for it to pass as he usually did, but there was nowhere to hide.

“That gives people _anthrax.”_

It became apparent to Flug that he wasn’t hired out of want but out of desperate necessity. These ideas were terrible. Blackhat ground his hips, it now becoming apparent what he was doing.  

“Don’t get distracted,” he barked, raking his nails across Flug’s bare shoulders, “it’s rude.”  

 

* * *

 

After many sleepless nights, prayers to various deities and to some effigies Flug had constructed from tinfoil, the cloning machine was complete. Spitting in the face of law, ethics, and the rules of the universe itself, it sat there. It looked like an iron maiden, a silver obelisk stood in the only unfurnished room in the house, lit starkly. Flug didn’t like looking at it. He didn’t like thinking about its true purpose either. Blackhat had, specifically, marked this date on the calendar in the kitchen with a love heart, a few sparkles and a note that said ‘AFFRONT TO GOD’, underlined twice in what Flug assumed was real blood. They stood in the doorway, staring at it. Flug was grabbed by the shoulders, he braced himself for horrors he couldn’t understand.

Blackhat was beaming at him, joyful, and this was far scarier.

“Flug, you are a _genius.”_

Flug waited for him to continue, to top it off with a smarmy comment and a dark giggle. He didn’t, the statement hung there between them.

“... Th-Thank you?”

“You’re very welcome.”

With an effortless slide across the floor, like that of a dancer, he went inside. He placed down a single towel, and a small, travel size tube of lubricant, then dotted his palms with hand sanitizer and rubbed it in. Lastly, he chewed on a stick of mint gum, moving his weight from foot to foot.

“Do-- Do you know how to use the machine, boss?”

“Of course I do, idiot! Of course! I walk in and then hit the blue button.”

“No,” Flug insisted, “No, no, you hit the red button, the blue button will kill us all if you hit it.”

“Whatever, they’re both colours, it’s close enough. No matter what you hear, don’t interrupt.”

He threw a delighted wink, then closed the door with a cheerful whistle and a bump of the hip. Flug left at once.

Blackhat emerged seventeen hours later. It was eight in the morning, Flug had rapped at the door, bunny slippers donned and coffee sipped. With a calamitous bang Blackhat kicked his way out, before slamming the door shut behind him and sliding down it, his clothing torn and his hat slightly off-kilter. They were both silent, Blackhat exhausted and Flug completely at a loss. He sipped his coffee again, adjusting his dressing gown.

“How did… It go?”

Blackhat, to Flug’s bafflement, looked haunted.

“We all tried to top and it got out of hand.”

“... Out of hand? What happened, boss?”

Blackhat looked forlorn, then took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

“Something _terrible.”_

“W-Wonderfully terrible? ‘Take over the world’ terrible?”

“No. No, something… Something unspeakable. More unspeakable than usual.”

“Oh God, that’s a lot.”

“I know. This is somehow your fault. If you’re going in there, go with a mop. And an incinerator. And a Bible.”

“I thought you said you would would start vomiting seawater if I brought one of those in, and that the bones of every saint would rise and fight their way here to obliterate you?”

“I’m willing to risk it. I might burn the house down and start again.”

Flug tapped his fingers to one another.

“Where are the rest?”

“Dead.”

_“Dead?"_

“Dead.”

“... Are you the original?”

He looked unsure.

“Let’s leave the metaphysical questions out of this, I already have a headache. And leg-ache.”

“Oh no…”

“Ball-ache.”

“Alright, that’s--”

“Three torsions. Can you..?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Hurry up. It feels like I’ve been threaded with sandpaper.”  

Flug fetched the ice-packs from the freezer. Blackhat waddled out, with one pressed to his groin and arse respectively. The broadcast was cancelled that week. A mop did not cut it.

 

* * *

 

 

Flug awoke to the sound of Blackhat cackling from the living room. It wasn’t put on, it was sincere, genuine laughter, so hard that it would become silent and then rise to a fever in bursts. Now growing used to this he follow the noise, curious. Blackhat was sat in the dark, watching the television with rapturous glee.

“Flug! Flug look at this!”

He rewound, until the headline appeared, backed with solemn looking newsreaders.

‘Fourteen dead in hospital fire. Eighty injured. Faulty equipment suspected.’

Blackhat resumed his laughter. Flug didn’t find this to be funny.

“It gets better,” he wheezed, “it gets-- I’m going to faint--”

He hit play. The newsreader spoke.

“The fire, which devastated the building, started in the burn ward and spread--”

Blackhat clutched his stomach, thudding at the sofa, tears streaming down his face.

 _“The irony! The irony, Flug! Going in with burns and going out with a crispy finish! ‘Oh I’m sorry sir, your surgery is postponed, we’ve crisped you up like a_ _crème brûlée’_ _! It must smell like a carvery in there, the families won’t be able to have bacon on toast without bursting into tears!”_

He kicked his legs. This was the happiest Flug had ever seen him. Were it not for the terrible circumstances that brought this about he would almost be pleased.

_“Saving money on the cremation I see, how pragmatic!”_

He fell off the couch. The noise echoed in the halls, then echoed back, as if he were joining in with himself. He removed his monocle to wipe his eyes, finally calming down.

“Say what you will about hospitals, at least they received a _warm reception!_ ”

Flug looked at him, disgusted, then left the room. Blackhat was in hysterics, scrambling to his feet to follow him.  

“Come back, I have more puns! We're bonding, Flug, bonding.”

 

* * *

 

Blackhat had a room dedicated entirely to his many portraits. Flug had stumbled upon it when 5.0.5 began to wander, bumbling from room to room in innocent curiosity, seeing what he could find. The portraits, if not on the walls, were stuffed awkwardly into corners and stacked on one another like scales, they tumbled out from under tables, some hidden under tarp. Flug assumed the artists had been ‘hired’ as he was, with terror and an astronomical amount of money. Stately portraits, polaroids, and, strangely, a piece of torn parchment behind glass in a language he couldn’t recognize. Tiny men, scattered like gravel, running from a huge, hideous thing, a hundred times their size. A tidal wave of festering clumps, rollicking tumours of eyes, teeth and crudely drawn sinew. On top of this priceless piece of history was a shittily drawn top hat, done poorly in a marker.

“I didn’t look right without it, so I fixed it.”

Blackhat was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed. 5.0.5. had wandered off out of the room at this point, content to explore the rest of the house. Flug scoured his mind for excuses as to why he was there and snooping, and found that Blackhat held his hands up as a gesture of ease.

“No no, go on, I’m always happy when people want to remind themselves of what a truly exceptional creature I am. Take your time.”  

Flug breathed a sigh of relief and continued his browsing, now with a ready excuse for slacking to hand should he ever need a break.

The largest was a commissioned portrait, an oil painting, its age leading to cracks around the edges, creeping in like thin, white roots. It was Blackhat looking disdainfully out of the canvas, holding a glass of wine, and wearing a suit that wouldn’t come into fashion for hundreds of years. It used to sit in the dining area, but Flug didn’t like it because sometimes it would move, or speak to him. Once it called him ‘the living embodiment of an asthma attack’ and didn’t even respond when Flug told it that his asthma was congenital and not to be mocked. The rest of the room was dotted with smaller, less ornate paintings, barring the one of Blackhat lying naked on a tiger-skin rug, covered in gold leaf.

“That was a still life. I killed so many tigers,” he chuckled.

On the desk were the photographs. The house, Blackhat posing, and then the two of them together.

“Aw,” Flug said.

“You-- You stop that, shut up.”

Flug browsed the pictures, finding one that made his stomach churn. It was Blackhat, stood amongst apocalyptic devastation, debris and detritus and ruin.

“What happened here?”  

“Nothing,” Blackhat said, “that’s just what the East End looks like.”

 

* * *

 

“Hi. Blackhat isn’t here today. He’s, um. He’s caught the flu. I’m hosting today. It’s-- Flug, I’m Flug. Hello.”

Flug wrung his hands, hating this. He didn’t even know it was possible for whatever Blackhat was to contract an illness but here he was, stumbling in front of a camera by himself for a bemused public.

“This is a gun that amplifies the emotions of anyone it hits. You can use it to turn arguments over dishes into bloodbaths. Behold.”

He paused for his scolding, then remembered that he wouldn’t be receiving any, not right now, though Blackhat was holed up in his room with enough cold medicine to kill a bull elephant and a television. In front of Flug was a small wooden table, and upon it a watermelon, his ‘victim’ for his scientifically induced bloodlust.

“Here we go, here we go--”

He took a deep breath then pulled the trigger, hoping he wouldn’t die. He didn’t. He waited for the rage to kick in. It didn’t.

He could really go for some strawberries.

“Oh God, it… I didn’t-- this didn’t work, it just makes you kind of want strawberries. Oh geeze, he’s gonna hate this…”

Flug made a weak attempt at showmanship, performing the most flaccid jazz hands ever put to tape.

“T-Ta-da! Buy the strawberry gun today!”

Faintly, not loud enough to be picked up by the microphone of the camera, he heard noises coming from Blackhat’s room.

“Alright I have to go, goodbye, bye, bye--”

He fiddled with the buttons of the camera, unsure of what to hit. After a minute or two of floundering he hit a button that seemed to do something. His relief diminished when he heard something thunder down the hall, and then vanished entirely when Blackhat tore the hinges off the door with his bare hands and threw it to the ground. He was barely understandable, the flu having ruined his vocal chords further, tucked in a black duvet like a mobile cave.

_“Strawberries, Flug!”_

“Evil strawberries.”

“You promised me a bloodbath, _where is my bloodbath!_ My precious, illegal broadcast, this isn’t a _children’s show!”_

If there was a camera Flug would have looked into it.

“I cannot _believe_ you, that was a _disaster_ , I can’t ever, ever let you appear on camera again, you have no _stage presence, no salesmanship--”_

“If you gave me the time I asked for then maybe I could have got it working. Brains are complex--”

_“Yours isn’t!”_

Blackhat loomed over him, his many teeth visible and growing in number. Flug spoke up, weakly.

“Can I divert the funds. For a necessary purchase.”

_“Why.”_

Flug shrunk back, rubbing at his arm, his nails bitten.

“I’m--”

“If you say strawberries I’ll do what your parents should have done at birth and unhinge my jaw to _eat you.”_

It was strawberries. Flug’s phone buzzed to life. He had been informed of a purchase.

“Someone placed an order."

“Oh, a person. Goodie. If we go under I’m digging up a beloved family pet and fucking it in front of you.”

Another message, then another, swathes of them flying in. Five. A dozen. Two dozen. Fifty. One hundred.

Blackhat did not look pleased.

Five hundred. One thousand. Two thousand.

“I offer weapons and devices that can be used to make your enemies suffer in delightful pain,” he said, “and your ‘gun’ that makes people want a _fruit_ outsells me by thousands in less than five minutes.”

“W-We’ve never sold this many of anything, ever, I don’t know how I can make all those.”

“So you’re telling me the show, that I present, my show, my show that I present, is the most successful it has ever been because I wasn’t on it.”

“I-I wouldn’t put it like _that--_ ”

“You don’t have to. I just did. I’m going to my room. Hold my calls.”

“You never get any calls.”

“Good. Hold them if I do.”

He did, in fact, retire to his room. For three days. After drinking up the courage to open the door, Flug found him in a depressive slump, eating raw mince out of the packet with his hands, clad in his boxer shorts, one sock and his hat. He was swigging cognac out of the bottle, some sloshing down his face and onto his wiry torso.

“Leave me, Flug. Leave me to my mince.”  

“You can’t just sit in here all day and drink. And eat mince. It’s not healthy.”

“I’m not getting _drunk,”_ he drunked, drunkenly, “I am coming up with _ideas._ You aren’t the only one that can _have those_ , Flug. I am a genius as well.”

“... Th-Then why hire me?”

“You shut up! You don’t have… Have the questions here. _I_ have the questions!”

“You... Have questions, sir?”

“Yes! Why are you so shit?”

He laughed, slapping his knee. He took another swig.

“Another week down the pan. Finally sell something and it’s terrible, this isn’t a charity. This has been a farce from start to finish. Maybe I should give up. Do it all myself. That has worked before.”

Flug lit up. His workload, lightened. His pride, saved.

“That’s a great idea!”

“It is! I would have to kill you; you know too much--”

Flug’s heart nearly shot out of his chest, his panic responses kicking into gear for the seventeenth time that day.

“No sir, selling that was all part of your-- my-- our evil plan.”

Blackhat looked at him, knowing full well that he was bullshitting but wanting to see where this went.

_“Go on.”_

Flug’s mind was firing on all cylinders, every survival instinct kicking in at once. He settled on something.

“We’ll sell harmless things, we’ll sell things that do good in the world--”

“This idea is terrible and I hate it. Time to die.”

 _“But_ , _”_ Flug interrupted, _“but,_ that’s how we lure people in! We-- We say we’ve had a change of heart, and that we sell products that help, but then, without warning, we sell something _evil_ masquerading as a useful tool! Thousands will die!”

Flug unsettled himself with the level of enthusiasm he put in that statement, and the fact that he didn’t really care if it were to happen anymore.

Blackhat held his chin, giving this careful thought. Flug saw, for a moment, a glimmer of respect.  

“What do you plan on selling?”

“I-- Um-- I-- _A vegetable peeler!”_

Blackhat made a ‘continue’ motion with his hands. Flug prayed his propensity for bad ideas extended beyond his own.

“A vegetable peeler that… That gives people anthrax?”

“My God,” Blackhat whispered, “it’s brilliant.”

Blackhat pondered this idea, with one hand on his chin and the other shoving a fistful of mince down his gullet. He chumbled.

“Yes… Yes, I see what you mean, giving people a little shred of kindness and then exploding it everywhere… Yes, that’s _diabolical!_ ”

He rose to his feet, shaking Flug by the shoulders in gratitude that could easily be mistaken for malevolent sadism. He then threw him back and made a grand swooping gesture with his arms, which didn’t seem as extravagant as it usually did given that he was drunk, stank of raw meat, and half naked.  

“What the _hell_ am I doing! I’m Blackhat, it’s illegal to say my name in _fourteen countries and a principality,_ I’ve never moped a day in my life and I’m not going to start now.”

With one last swig he threw the cognac to the floor, smashing it.

“Clean that!”

“Was that expensive...”

_“You better bloody believe it!”_

“Great...”  

With a hand motion and an unpleasant snapping noise he appeared in the doorway, sharply dressed and minceless. He turned to his assistant.

“Flug, I--”

He looked physically pained, as if being stabbed. He gagged, then composed himself.

“-- Thank you.”

“Why sir, that’s so kind of you, I--

“Shut up. Tell nobody,” he rasped, adjusting his tie.

“I won’t.”

“Good. I’ll _know._ ”

 

* * *

 

Blackhat was reading. Flug was cleaning the monocle, shaking off the aches of the early morning. Sat between them was some toast, some butter, and a lady. Blackhat licked his finger and turned the page. Flug continued his cleaning. He probably couldn’t buff out the scratches this time, it had been chipped.

“Flug, when is your friend leaving. I’m sick of her. I keep stabbing her but it won’t take.”

Flug looked up.

“My friend? I thought she was your friend.”

Blackhat cocked his eyebrow.

“I don’t have friends. Now that I think on it, neither do you.”

“Ow.”  

They both turned to face her, slowly, looking her over. She wiggled her fingers in a wave, tittered, then rested her hands comfortably on her chin. She had been there for thirty minutes.

“Who the devil are you.”

She lit up.

“I’m subscribed to your fanzine!”

“Wonderful. Get out of my house.”

“You’re dreamy. I don’t even care that you don’t have a nose. You smell _amazing,”_ she whispered. “I’m Demencia.”

“That’s not your real name.”

“But isn’t it cute? I thought you would like it!”

“I like literally nothing about you.”  

She threw him a saucy wink. 

"I can change that."

Blackhat dog-eared the page he was at, closed the book, cleared his throat, and exploded into a shrieking, quivering mass of noise and meat, pulsing--

“So cool, teach me, _teach me!”_

Blackhat looked to Flug to confirm that he was, in fact, making the scary face, and Flug’s panicked sobbing confirmed it. He turned back to Demencia. She looked unperturbed.

Blackhat was deeply perturbed. “What is wrong with you,” was all he said.

She thought. She pulled Flug and Blackhat into a group hug, both of them too disturbed to process what was happening. 

“I’ve already picked my room!”  

 

* * *

 

 

_“Do some bloody work!”_

Blackhat had stormed his way into Flug’s room, just as he was falling asleep, shoved him out of the bed, stripped naked and threw himself down, demanding to be ‘lavished as he deserved’. He was being fucked into the next century, his legs hanging over Flug’s shoulders, yet he had the gall to check his watch like he was waiting for the bus. He didn’t look moved at all, Flug was having a hard time standing and Blackhat was just lying there.

“Good God, what am I _paying_ you for!”

“You haven’t paid me this week.”

“Because I knew you would pull this nonsense; come on, chop chop, I have plans!”

“Why do you _always_ get like this when I’m on top?”

“Because as the owner of a fine business I know _shoddy service! Only I get to do that, it’s mine!”_

Flug tried to increase his speed, faltering when it was too much.

“Must I do _everything_ myself?”

“I-- I can’t-- I can’t go any faster--”

“Can’t, or won’t? Are you taking a leisurely nap at the beach, this is not difficult, Flug, even you can do it--”

Something finally snapped. Flug’s voice rose to a screech.

“I am _sick of this!”_

Blackhat recoiled.

“You are going to treat me with _dignity, I am a doctor, you’re some angry misfit in a hat! You laze around all day and take credit for the work--”_

Flug clamped his fingers to Blackhat’s neck, pressing as hard as he could, until his eyes bulged.

_“I!”_

He found the strength to press harder still.

_“Do!”_

“I could kill you right now,” Blackhat croaked, hard as a rock.

_“I don’t care! I didn’t slave away for eight years for nothing, I am a genius and you--”_

He moved a hand from Blackhat’s neck to bitchslap him across the face.

_“Are going!”_

And once again, for good measure. His blood was smeared across his teeth, a dark, thick purple. Flug’s palms stung.

 _“To_ **_respect me!_** ” 

His righteous indignation was spent and he let go, retracting his hands as if he had touched a wire. Blackhat stayed still, peering up from under the rim of his hat with a dark, predatory glee, as if he were a cat pawing at the warm guts of a mouse. This was it, Flug was finally going to actually die, all the threats had led to this, Blackhat was going to tear his head open and eat his eyes like plump strawberries.

“Oh God! Oh God, I’m-- I’m so sorry, I didn’t-- oh God--”

 _“I didn’t say stop,”_ Blackhat snarled.

“... Wh-What?”

_“I didn’t say to stop, put your bloody back into it! Use your arm, not your wrist!”_

Flug slapped him again, confused and on the verge of cumming.

“You meant it before, do it again! Punch me!”

Flug did, weakly, wincing when the impact hurt his thumb. Blackhat looked like he was going to pop with frustration.

“You’ve never thrown a punch in your life, look at you, again!”

He did. He knocked a tooth loose, it smacked his face when it was spat at him.

“Thumb on the outside you idiot, thumb on the outside!”

“What is this,” Flug whispered, and Blackhat looked as baffled as he did.

“We’re finally having sex? Pay attention, I keep telling you.”

Another hit. Blackhat moaned, finally pressing back to meet Flug’s touches. He bit his neck until he bled, then bit more. Flug clawed desperately at his back in an attempt to get him off and succeeded on both fronts, he had removed himself just as Flug felt cum splatter his stomach. He finished soon after, both out of necessity and desire, Blackhat’s slender, strange body spread flat in front of him, arm across his eye. He was battered, bleeding and spent.

“I enjoyed that. Be glad I did. You’re a lucky boy, Florence. A lucky, lucky boy. Cigarette?”

Flug shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around what had just happened, coming down from the high of climax and finally punching Blackhat in the face. His stomach turned as he thought of the repercussions.  

“Good, I only have one and it’s mine.”

He lit it, taking a long draw before stubbing it out harmlessly on his tongue and flicking it to the ground. Flug had slid out, but failed to compose his thoughts.

“Night.”

Flug blinked.

“Sh-Shouldn’t you… Be throwing me out? Making me run some kind of gauntlet, naked? Dumping me in the Arctic to fistfight a polar bear?”

Blackhat shrugged in response, nestled comfortably under the duvet in a way that was dangerously close to vulnerable.

“Probably.”  

He turned away. Flug sat there, unsure of what to do with himself. His train of thought was broken by Blackhat barking commands at him, as usual.

“I’m not a cheap fleshlight you rude bastard, come on!”

“What?”

“Come on!”

Blackhat lay still.

“Unbelievable,” he huffed, “absolutely unbelievable.”

He turned around, grabbed Flug painfully by the wrists and threw them over his shoulders before resuming his original position. It took a moment to register that they were, however awkwardly, spooning. Taking the initiative, Flug scooted in tentatively, as wary as he could be, until their hips were pressed together. Blackhat was freezing cold, it was like spooning an ice cube.

“Finally,” he said.


End file.
